Mogadishu (HAN) March 6th, 2014 , By: Hamza Mohamed Interviewing Al-Shabaab’s Lower Shabelle governor, Sheikh Mohamed Abu Abdullah, about the group’s decision to ban NGOs in areas they control. Hamza will run a piece soon on the issue.
Historical background: The Somali militant group al-Shabaab banned 16 aid groups – including a half dozen U.N. agencies – from central and southern Somalia, a decision likely to harm Somalis already suffering from drought and famine. The banning of the aid groups falls in line with the group’s skeptical view of the outside world, but will worsen the suffering of the hundreds of thousands of Somalis who have come to depend on aid in Southern Somalia’s worst famine. The Somali Group Al-Shabab accused the 16 aid groups of disseminating information on the activities of Muslims and militant fighters, financing, aiding and abetting “subversive” groups seeking to destroy the basic tenants of the Islamic penal system, and of “persistently galvanizing the local population” against the full establishment of Shariah law, a harsh and punitive interpretation of Islam. Hamza Mohamed, Somali British Frealance Journalist Works at Al Jazeera English in Somalia